[G] PvT - Liquid`NonY's 1/1 Colossus Push

"You can be creative, but I will crush it under the iron fist of my conservative play."Liquid`NonY

Introduction

I really like safe openings in PvT and so a wide-range of 2 Gate Robo openings have become my standard builds. In this guide I'm going to be telling you about a build that centres around a Colossus-based push that hits at around 12 to 13 minutes with 1/1 upgrades completed. Dependant on how many Gateways you choose to make for reinforcements and whether or not you choose to cut Probes, this build may or may not be an all-in, but this short guide focuses on the 8 Gateway all-in version of the build.

An alternative opening is to go Zealot, Sentry, Zealot, Sentry out of your initial Gateway, building the Robotics Facility between the first Sentry and the second Zealot. This gives you a Forcefield to use earlier in the game, but leaves you weak to Reaper openings (which are incredibly rare).

Another alternative opening is to open with two Assimilators on 15 Supply, with each Assimilator being mined with only 2 Probes initially. This allows you to go Zealot, Stalker, Sentry, Sentry from your Gateway much more smoothly. Once there are 16 Probes mining minerals, rally the next two Probes into the Assimilators so that there are 3 mining from each. The rest of the build operates just the same.

I usually scout pretty early in PvT, but given how safe this opening is and given how quickly you're getting an Observer, you don't really need to Probe scout other than to check for proxy Barracks/Factories/Starports on maps with only 2 spawn locations.

Get a second Observer if you can't confirm a gasless opening from the Terran. They could be going for Cloaked Banshees and it sucks when your Observer is half-way across the map and a Banshee flies into your base.

Getting +1 Armour from the Forge before getting +1 Weapons is safer against a variety of Terran 2 base all-ins and pushes. This is because +1 Weapons only really become relevant once you have Colossi out on the field, which you won't have when your first upgrade finishes.

You should have approximately enough gas for +1 Weapons, Colossus Range and a Colossus when the Robotics Bay finishes.

Make mostly Stalkers from your Warpgates after starting your first Colossus. Make mostly Zealot/Sentry before this point.

After starting your second Colossus and making 4 more Gateways, make a proxy Pylon out on the map.

Move out after your first 8 Gateway warp-in has taken place (which should be a warp-in of mostly Stalkers). If the Terran is still hanging around your natural as part of their Medivac pressure, wait for the 3rd Colossus before moving out on the map.

I should thank NonY for developing this build because I wouldn't have come up with it on my own. I'm glad that there are still professional-level players out there who are willing to play the game in a safer manner than what's considered "standard" because taking risks really isn't my style.

Also, this is my 2000th post. Yay?!

EU High Masters Protoss ~ Grubby: "I'd rather play a strategy that is worse, but that I feel confident in, than play the better strategy, not really feeling it and not being 100% behind it" ~ Sad Zealot Fan </3

Why not just go 1 gate FE into a colossus push like squirtle does occasionally? It hits faster and stronger.

Why would you add a forge into this timing? Upgrades are not that stellar for a colossus push because you tend to be stalker heavy, a unit that hardly benefits from upgrades. It weakens the timing and doesn't even make you transition that much better as you can easily go for the timing and drop double forge if you want to transition instead.

I think colo pushes are best just starting off with a 1 gate FE into 3 gate robo. If you see they expanded and suspect they are on normal play or a fast third you can drop a fast support bay and just go push when you have 2 colo and range. Adding in a forge or expanding too late slows down the push tremendously which gives up the window of opportunity. Pushing early means you push before substantial medivacs/vikings are out which removes the option of a base trade or just an easy defense with vikings for them. A colo push vs T basically depends on your colossi being able to abuse range before vikings counter them too well. The timing in this guide is so late that when you're up agianst standard play they can easily have a couple medivacs AND a bunch of vikings already. At that point they can punish you when you're moving out with a drop and/or they can defend the push with vikings.

Nony's 2 gate robo play is just horribly outdated nowadays. Back when maps where substantially smaller and more random scary stuff for terran existed (thor allin's, blue flame hellion drops, 1-1-1 etc.) it was fairly good. Nowadays 1 gate FE can easily stop all these funky plays and is just critical in keeping up with 1 rax FE or even CC first.

On July 12 2012 21:22 Markwerf wrote:Why not just go 1 gate FE into a colossus push like squirtle does occasionally? It hits faster and stronger.

Why would you add a forge into this timing? Upgrades are not that stellar for a colossus push because you tend to be stalker heavy, a unit that hardly benefits from upgrades. It weakens the timing and doesn't even make you transition that much better as you can easily go for the timing and drop double forge if you want to transition instead.

I think colo pushes are best just starting off with a 1 gate FE into 3 gate robo. If you see they expanded and suspect they are on normal play or a fast third you can drop a fast support bay and just go push when you have 2 colo and range. Adding in a forge or expanding too late slows down the push tremendously which gives up the window of opportunity. Pushing early means you push before substantial medivacs/vikings are out which removes the option of a base trade or just an easy defense with vikings for them. A colo push vs T basically depends on your colossi being able to abuse range before vikings counter them too well. The timing in this guide is so late that when you're up agianst standard play they can easily have a couple medivacs AND a bunch of vikings already. At that point they can punish you when you're moving out with a drop and/or they can defend the push with vikings.

Nony's 2 gate robo play is just horribly outdated nowadays. Back when maps where substantially smaller and more random scary stuff for terran existed (thor allin's, blue flame hellion drops, 1-1-1 etc.) it was fairly good. Nowadays 1 gate FE can easily stop all these funky plays and is just critical in keeping up with 1 rax FE or even CC first.

Because I don't personally feel safe opening with a 1 Gate FE and thus have no desire to play that style. If you prefer a 1 Gate FE style then feel free to post a guide detailing Squirtle's Colossus push n_n;

On July 12 2012 21:36 SilSol wrote:I've done a pretty similar build way before. It's nothing new to me. And i'm being honest.

I never claimed it was a new build, and if you can show me a previous thread detailing this build then I'd happily request that this guide be removed

EU High Masters Protoss ~ Grubby: "I'd rather play a strategy that is worse, but that I feel confident in, than play the better strategy, not really feeling it and not being 100% behind it" ~ Sad Zealot Fan </3

On July 12 2012 21:22 Markwerf wrote:Why not just go 1 gate FE into a colossus push like squirtle does occasionally? It hits faster and stronger.

Why would you add a forge into this timing? Upgrades are not that stellar for a colossus push because you tend to be stalker heavy, a unit that hardly benefits from upgrades. It weakens the timing and doesn't even make you transition that much better as you can easily go for the timing and drop double forge if you want to transition instead.

I think colo pushes are best just starting off with a 1 gate FE into 3 gate robo. If you see they expanded and suspect they are on normal play or a fast third you can drop a fast support bay and just go push when you have 2 colo and range. Adding in a forge or expanding too late slows down the push tremendously which gives up the window of opportunity. Pushing early means you push before substantial medivacs/vikings are out which removes the option of a base trade or just an easy defense with vikings for them. A colo push vs T basically depends on your colossi being able to abuse range before vikings counter them too well. The timing in this guide is so late that when you're up agianst standard play they can easily have a couple medivacs AND a bunch of vikings already. At that point they can punish you when you're moving out with a drop and/or they can defend the push with vikings.

Nony's 2 gate robo play is just horribly outdated nowadays. Back when maps where substantially smaller and more random scary stuff for terran existed (thor allin's, blue flame hellion drops, 1-1-1 etc.) it was fairly good. Nowadays 1 gate FE can easily stop all these funky plays and is just critical in keeping up with 1 rax FE or even CC first.

I've added a second NonY VoD from his streaming session today. In this VoD, NonY's push is delayed considerably by the Terran threatening to attack from multiple angles on Antiga Shipyard, a map that is notorious for the strength of Terran drop-play (the strength of Terran drops on that map are why I have it vetoed qq). However, despite the push being delayed long enough that the Terran is able to get out several Vikings, NonY still crushes through the Terran's natural expansion.

EDIT:

To be honest, despite this push being delayed and despite the Colossi being easily scoutable, Vikings are not a problem for me when I use this build. You can target fire the Vikings with Stalkers and you can use Forcefields to cut the Terran army into bite-sized chunks. My biggest source of defeats when using this build are the other thing you mentioned, base-trade scenarios; however, I personally believe that base-trade scenarios occurring comes down to a lack of map-awareness rather than down to the build you're losing. If you don't have some idea where the bulk of the opponent's army is then you probably shouldn't be walking across the map with your whole attacking force.

EU High Masters Protoss ~ Grubby: "I'd rather play a strategy that is worse, but that I feel confident in, than play the better strategy, not really feeling it and not being 100% behind it" ~ Sad Zealot Fan </3

Still i think 1gate expo is much better for eco and for a faster hit timming.

Also, for a +1/+1 collosus push, not offense but Genius have done it a lot of times in the gsl with +50% success, and i find it more than the Tyler build. Also i think that the timings from the preparation for a GSL code S match should be tighter than the ones from anyone else.

I've updated the build order a little bit and replaced the replays with some more recent replays of me using this build. I've also removed the second NonY VOD since it seems to be broken (god dammit Twitch!). I'm still using this build in Masters league (I was in Diamond league when I posted this short guide) and I'm still having a fair amount of success with it, at least when I execute it properly.

As far as the build itself goes, I'm still doing it in more or less the same manner. The only difference is that I'm now waiting for a third Colossus before moving out, which I've found to make the build much stronger. It actually surprised me that this was the case, to be honest, because I thought for the longest time that waiting longer would make the build weaker since it would give the Terran more time to get out Vikings. However, if you control your Stalkers/Sentries properly and have the right amount of Zealots to tank for them then things can still work out just fine. At the end of the day, you have the army-size advantage and you have much stronger reinforcement capabilities, you've just got to use them properly!

EU High Masters Protoss ~ Grubby: "I'd rather play a strategy that is worse, but that I feel confident in, than play the better strategy, not really feeling it and not being 100% behind it" ~ Sad Zealot Fan </3

What do you think about ST_Squirtle's 2-base Colossus all-in in comparison to this one? It hits a lot faster with the same 3 ranged Colossi, but without upgrades. (It also only goes up to 6 gates, since it hits faster and all.)

<@Wikt> so you are one of those nega-fans <@Wikt> that hates the company that makes a game and everything they stand for <@Wikt> but still plays the game <@Wikt> (like roughly 30% of blizzard's player base, maybe much more...)

On December 14 2012 17:03 Salivanth wrote:What do you think about ST_Squirtle's 2-base Colossus all-in in comparison to this one? It hits a lot faster with the same 3 ranged Colossi, but without upgrades. (It also only goes up to 6 gates, since it hits faster and all.)

Squirtle's build hits much earlier and so moves out against a Terran who probably won't have any Vikings. This obviously makes the Colossi really strong as they don't have a direct counter. In exchange for this earlier timing, you have a much smaller army size advantage, less reinforcement capability and no upgrades.

This build moves out with a much bigger army advantage, more reinforcement capability, 1/1 upgrades, and against a Terran who is likely to be spread out over 3 bases. In exchange, you're likely to be going up against a Terran who has Vikings ready to counter your Colossi, placing more emphasis on Stalker/Force Field micro than with Squirtle's build.

Which is better? I don't really think you can compare them that easily since they are designed to hit different timings and require different levels of control, but I guess you'd have to say that Squirtle's build is better since it's more widely used. I just don't personally like opening 1 Gate FE.

More seriously, you're underestimating the army value advantage this build accumulates over the course of the game...

[Incorrect Image Removed]

EDIT:

I uploaded the wrong image initially. Here is the image that I meant to upload:

EU High Masters Protoss ~ Grubby: "I'd rather play a strategy that is worse, but that I feel confident in, than play the better strategy, not really feeling it and not being 100% behind it" ~ Sad Zealot Fan </3

On December 14 2012 18:14 459 wrote:Thank you for writing this strat down! Great job!Going to try it out. And maybe compare it to the squirtle build and see how it feels.Is this build especially bad / good at any maps?

Grats to over 2k posts.

Out of the ladder map-pool, it's especially good on Cloud Kingdom, Ohana and Shakuras Plateau. Basically, any map that has a lot of chokes and is relatively small. Antiga Shipyard and Condemned Ridge are really good maps for drops because of how large the cliff-edges around the main bases are, which makes other styles preferable. You could still use this build, but you'd have to be really sure that they're not going to doom-drop you as you are you're moving out, and it's hard to be sure on maps like those. I wouldn't use it on Daybreak or Tal'Darim Altar.

EU High Masters Protoss ~ Grubby: "I'd rather play a strategy that is worse, but that I feel confident in, than play the better strategy, not really feeling it and not being 100% behind it" ~ Sad Zealot Fan </3

On December 14 2012 17:03 Salivanth wrote:What do you think about ST_Squirtle's 2-base Colossus all-in in comparison to this one? It hits a lot faster with the same 3 ranged Colossi, but without upgrades. (It also only goes up to 6 gates, since it hits faster and all.)

Squirtle's build hits much earlier and so moves out against a Terran who probably won't have any Vikings. This obviously makes the Colossi really strong as they don't have a direct counter. In exchange for this earlier timing, you have a much smaller army size advantage, less reinforcement capability and no upgrades.

This build moves out with a much bigger army advantage, more reinforcement capability, 1/1 upgrades, and against a Terran who is likely to be spread out over 3 bases. In exchange, you're likely to be going up against a Terran who has Vikings ready to counter your Colossi, placing more emphasis on Stalker/Force Field micro than with Squirtle's build.

Which is better? I don't really think you can compare them that easily since they are designed to hit different timings and require different levels of control, but I guess you'd have to say that Squirtle's build is better since it's more widely used. I just don't personally like opening 1 Gate FE.

On December 14 2012 17:03 Salivanth wrote:What do you think about ST_Squirtle's 2-base Colossus all-in in comparison to this one? It hits a lot faster with the same 3 ranged Colossi, but without upgrades. (It also only goes up to 6 gates, since it hits faster and all.)

Do you have a BO on that build, actually? I've been looking for it forever.

On December 14 2012 17:03 Salivanth wrote:What do you think about ST_Squirtle's 2-base Colossus all-in in comparison to this one? It hits a lot faster with the same 3 ranged Colossi, but without upgrades. (It also only goes up to 6 gates, since it hits faster and all.)

Squirtle's build hits much earlier and so moves out against a Terran who probably won't have any Vikings. This obviously makes the Colossi really strong as they don't have a direct counter. In exchange for this earlier timing, you have a much smaller army size advantage, less reinforcement capability and no upgrades.

This build moves out with a much bigger army advantage, more reinforcement capability, 1/1 upgrades, and against a Terran who is likely to be spread out over 3 bases. In exchange, you're likely to be going up against a Terran who has Vikings ready to counter your Colossi, placing more emphasis on Stalker/Force Field micro than with Squirtle's build.

Which is better? I don't really think you can compare them that easily since they are designed to hit different timings and require different levels of control, but I guess you'd have to say that Squirtle's build is better since it's more widely used. I just don't personally like opening 1 Gate FE.

1 gate fe isnt risky. Like...at all. You put yourself sooo far behind on econ with the two gate + robo before nexus. And at 12-13 min is late to me for a two base all in. You have no third and no TC to ger charge or blink along with 2/0/2..

On December 14 2012 17:03 Salivanth wrote:What do you think about ST_Squirtle's 2-base Colossus all-in in comparison to this one? It hits a lot faster with the same 3 ranged Colossi, but without upgrades. (It also only goes up to 6 gates, since it hits faster and all.)

Squirtle's build hits much earlier and so moves out against a Terran who probably won't have any Vikings. This obviously makes the Colossi really strong as they don't have a direct counter. In exchange for this earlier timing, you have a much smaller army size advantage, less reinforcement capability and no upgrades.

This build moves out with a much bigger army advantage, more reinforcement capability, 1/1 upgrades, and against a Terran who is likely to be spread out over 3 bases. In exchange, you're likely to be going up against a Terran who has Vikings ready to counter your Colossi, placing more emphasis on Stalker/Force Field micro than with Squirtle's build.

Which is better? I don't really think you can compare them that easily since they are designed to hit different timings and require different levels of control, but I guess you'd have to say that Squirtle's build is better since it's more widely used. I just don't personally like opening 1 Gate FE.

More seriously, you're underestimating the army value advantage this build accumulates over the course of the game...

That is a PvP game...

Meant to upload this image.

EU High Masters Protoss ~ Grubby: "I'd rather play a strategy that is worse, but that I feel confident in, than play the better strategy, not really feeling it and not being 100% behind it" ~ Sad Zealot Fan </3

Yeah... I wouldn't really recommend this build. To anyone. It hits very late at a point where Terran will unquestionably have a solid Viking count, a completed 3rd either in his base or mining his 3rd, and all hi important bio upgrades. With no 3rd or TC it's tough to transition from this. It's just a really, really slow all in that has an almost 0% chance of catchin someone off guard.

With a right-left, right-left you're toothless, And then you say "Goddamn they ruthless!"